with Keith J White

Censorship Can we afford to be liberal if we wish to protect children?

I don’t know whether you are one of those who enjoy the musings of philosophers. I have always had a fascination for such writings. When I was in the Lower Sixth I read Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy on holiday, for example. And I still have a copy of some of the works of C.E.M. Joad, whose catch phrase “It all depends what you mean by…” punctuated many Brains’ Trusts before my time. More recently I have enjoyed the published thoughts of Roger Scruton, and A.C. Grayling in The Times newspaper.

Before going any further I know some of my friends will want to comment that all this explains a lot about the way I think and do things, so I hasten to add that I am an amateur philosopher only, and that there is much with which I disagree, and a lot that I simply do not understand. It’s just that the systematic attempt to understand some of the deepest mysteries and paradoxes of life and existence captivates my imagination.

Well, in The Times on December 13, 2003, Grayling did a piece on censorship. It was a classical exposition of the liberal democratic view of things traced in direct line from Milton’s wonderful work the Areopagitica, that I loved as an undergraduate. Basically Grayling sees “free speech” (including publication) as a precious heritage and to be nurtured as a force for good in the face of all tyrannies, notably religious fundamentalism and political totalitarianism. He argues, “Censorship is an ancient evil, and liberation from it is the fuel of progress.” And anyone who has read a little history knows he has a major point.

But I want to argue (and could I say that I feel I have the right to argue?) that this is not the whole story. In my view we now face a situation totally unprecedented in human history that requires a fundamental rethink of this classical position. I am referring to the world-wide electronic web, and even more specifically, to where children fit into the argument.

Traditional liberal democratic discourse is silent about children. They are invisible in an abstract world of rational-thinking adults. So let us reframe the discourse with them at its heart. A survey of 8 - 16 year-olds carried out in Manchester, Glasgow and Swansea by the AXA insurance group in 2003 found that 86% had a TV in their own bedroom, 58% their own video recorder, 82% their own music systems, 25% their own PC, and 60% their own mobile phones (Source: The Times, 4 December, 2003).

The point of the study was to find out the value of the goods in such rooms, and that is what makes its unintended discoveries so significant. We are creating either directly or by default a space for our children and young people where they are alone and increasingly free to gain access to exactly what information and material they desire without any adult supervision or even knowledge.

If I think back to my childhood (which was not so many decades ago) our house had one radio (called a wireless) controlled by my grandfather and then parents, one telephone, and a record player with records chosen by adults. The social world has now changed dramatically and irreversibly. I am not saying that the way I grew up was “normal” or “desirable”: it is simply given as a point of reference.

The question that Grayling has not addressed is where this whole new fast developing social world of children fits his censorship thesis. I have been trying to think things through, partly as I have witnessed the change in the lives of children and young people I know, and partly as a result of requests from some child care agencies in Brazil who were pleading for censorship of western “adult” programmes available 24 hours a day to children, many of whom who had no adult supervision.

It is not unthinkable to envisage a situation when all children have independent access to all material on the web. Please don’t underestimate the scale or inescapable logic of technology and the market. If so, is the classical position on censorship still tenable? If this is argued, then it must presumably assume that those producing the material have the best interests of vulnerable children and young people at heart, in the same way that good parents do. As this is demonstrably not so, we face a dilemma. Should we reconsider our views of censorship in the interests of the children of the world?

I think the only plausible response is that we ought to consider this. Otherwise, we leave them prey to the predators of the global marketing machines seeking to shape them as customers and consumers with insatiable appetites for whatever is on offer. We are willing to consider tough restrictions on the liberties of adults in the interests of child protection, so why this reserve in the case of electronic material? Partly I think, because children are invisible in liberal debates. But partly because we dare not face the huge consequences of such a challenge to cherished ideas and principles.

I do not have an answer, but the time must come when we face the facts. Otherwise we will be sacrificing children on the altars of the media gods who control electronic and international media. The sacrifices will be bloodless, and out of sight and mind, of course, usually in the bedrooms that we helped to finance in the first place.

We could start by identifying how the processes of bullying, harassment, indecent behaviour and threats that we so despise in adults and peer groups that oppress children are alive and at work in the media world in which children are increasingly immersed. I do not have an answer, and I will always treasure Milton’s Areopagitica and my right to free speech. That is why I must speak. We couldn’t be creating a Nineteen Eighty-Four world for children, could we? In the light of the tighter restrictions that will follow in the wake of the Ian Huntley conviction for the murder of two girls, we seem to be ostriches, burying our heads in the sand when it comes to the way the media assault our children and young people.

Could you help me formulate the terms of the debate? If so, we might be able to ask the philosophers to come to our aid.

Keith J. White lives and cares for children and young people in Mill Grove where his family has lived for four generations. Since 1899 it has been a family home where children unable to live with their own parents have been welcomed

A child's answer to an exam question

In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, then threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbours were doing. When they fought with the Persians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.